man he does not stop to ask whether his gains are ill-gotten; and in this age the only restriction on the plundering of the subjects of the Empire was a legal one, and that of no great efficacy.  There are many repulsive things in the exquisite poetry of Catullus, but none of them jar on the modern mind quite so sharply as his virulent attacks on a provincial governor in whose suite he had gone to Bithynia in the hope of enriching himself, and under whose just administration he had failed to do so.  There is lost also the sense of a duty arising out of the possession of wealth—­the feeling that it should do some good in the world, or at least be in part applied to some useful purpose.  Lastly, the exciting pursuit of wealth helps to produce a curious restlessness and instability of character, of which we have many examples in the age we are studying.  “Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel,” are words that might be applied to many a young man among Cicero’s acquaintance, and to many women also.

No sudden operation could cure these evils—­they needed the careful and gradual treatment of a wise physician.  As in so many other ways, so here Augustus showed his wonderful instinct as a social reformer.  The first requisite of all was an age of comparative peace—­a healthy atmosphere in which the patient could recover his natural tone.  Next in importance was the removal of the incitement to enrich yourself and to spend illegally or unprofitably, and the revival of a sense of duty towards the State and its rulers.  Provincial governors were made more really responsible, and a scientific census revealed the actual tax-paying capacity of the provincials; tax-farming was more closely superintended and gradually disappeared.  It is true enough that even under the Empire great fortunes were made and lost, but the gambling spirit, the wild recklessness in monetary dealings, are not met with again.  The Roman Forum ceased to be insane, and Italy became once more the home of much happy and useful country life.  The passionate and reckless self-consciousness of Catullus is succeeded in the next generation by the calm sweet hopefulness of Virgil; in passing from the one poet to the other, we feel that we are leaving behind us an age of over-sensitive self-seeking and entering on one in which duty and honour, labour on the land and hard work for the State, may be reckoned as things more likely to make life worth living than all the accumulated capital of a Crassus.

CHAPTER IV

THE GOVERNING ARISTOCRACY